Resilience & grit: entrepreneurial traits and the sacrifices, risks & rewards of startup life

Manchester was, and continues to be, the home of great free-traders and free-thinkers. It has a stunning C19th architectural heritage and today is a proud C21st European city of technology, science and education, with a heritage of popular musical culture with global influence – or the Hallé Orchestra, if that gets your toes tapping more. 

Manchester was the site of the world’s first railway station, where scientists first split the atom, the home of the first stored-programme computer. The elements of Manchester’s well-being are based on endeavour, personal resilience and sheer graft. Compare this to the imbalance with the south-east economy, with its reliance on foreign funds and an over-sized financial services sector where money is the multiplier.

In 1962, Harold Macmillan’s home secretary Henry Brooke warned that if the Government did not prevent two nations developing geographically – a poor north and a rich south – our successors will reproach us as we reproach the Victorians for complacency about slums and ugliness. On multiple metrics, the north fares worse than the south, a yawning imbalance on income, life expectancy, and public sector spending. We do have rugby league though, so all is not lost.

I’m glad I am northern. I grew up with a coalbunker at the back of the house, a chippy round the corner and teenage years in pubs with chunky beer glasses with handles. I miss that – the beer glasses with handles, not the coalbunker. I was 17 before I caught sight of Euston Station. I had no need of London then and I guess it had no need of me.

I believe there is such a thing as a northern sensibility. It’s a grittiness that I think is behind the sheer determination of startiup founders. The north has a dictionary and thesaurus of its own and its words are for everyone. As Paul Morley describes the north: warmth, decency, truth and proper beer, with a side order of menace, whilst T S Eliot noted Lancashire wit is mordant, ferocious, and personal.

When you’re northern, you’re northern forever, and you’re instilled with a certain feel for life. Let me not become too misty-eyed and a regional stereotype, I’ve no chip on my shoulder, but there are places in which brass bands and allotments still thrive. There is still much about northern life that would make Orwell smile.

The innate fire-in-the-belly entrepreneurial spirit that made northern cities great from the Victorian Era onwards remains present today with vigour, self-belief and confidence. Let’s get some of the Wilson-Gretton-Hannett-Erasmus-Saville bootstrapping spirit from Factory Records and let’s crack on with the unknown pleasures of our own efforts.

Can you overcome setbacks, or do you get easily discouraged? You can’t be thin skinned or faint hearted when you run your own show. You’ve got to have vision, stamina, creative thinking and, most of all, grit and resilience. Even when your friends and family think you’re nuts, there are fundamentals of being a self-starter to push yourself outside your comfort zone. Easier said than done.

 Sometimes you have to give yourself a good pep talk: note to self. Remember how far you've come, not just how far you have to go. Grit trumps everything else.  Research shows that it is one of the defining characteristics of successful entrepreneurs.

Psychologist Angela Duckworth’s research at Penn State University defines psychological grit as perseverance and passion for long-term goals. 

Actor Will Smith talks a little differently about grit: The only thing that I see that is

distinctly different about me is I'm not afraid to die on a treadmill. I will not be outworked, period. You might have more talent than me, you might be smarter than me, you might be sexier than me, you might be all of those things - you got it on me in nine categories. But if we get on the treadmill together, there are two things: You're getting off first, or I'm going to die. It's really that simple. I love this as a personal call to action.

Entrepreneurship has a way of sucking us in due to our drive and ambition, but your startup should bolster your happiness and fulfilment, not detract.  For many, ‘it’s crazy at work’ has become their startup norm. Work claws away at life. Life has become work’s leftovers. The answer isn’t more hours, it’s less noise and far fewer things that induce ‘always-on’ anxiety. On-demand is for movies, not for work. Sacrifices abound.

Not only does crazy not work, but its genesis - towering, unrealistic expectations driven by greed - drags people down. It’s time to stop asking everyone to breathlessly chase ever-higher targets set by ego. It’s time to stop celebrating crazy. Workaholics aren't heroes. They don't save the day; they just use it up. Risks are often knowingly ignored.

Push back on the cauldron of hype and bravado, extreme working hours, growth-at-all-costs, and the focus on fund raising as a measure of success – all are fundamentally flawed. Noise and movement are not indicator of activity and progress, they’re just indicators of noise and movement. No hair on fire. Build calm. Simply turn these on their heads and debunk the myth to get a batter balance of reward.

Chaos should not be the natural state at your startup. Anxiety isn’t a prerequisite for progress.  Keep things simple. Leave the poetry in what you make. Focus on rewarding yourself. Being a founder is not as glorious as you think. So, let’s look at three attributes – sacrifice, risk, and reward – that I think you need to consider before rolling the founders’ dice, and put them into perspective. 

1.         Personal Sacrifices You’ll be giving something up, sure, but try to think of it as an investment. You’re giving up stuff today in exchange for something better down the road. You’re paying for the opportunity to find success in your own enterprise on your own terms. Here are some common sacrifices to expect along the way.

Stability You’re starting a new venture, there’s no guarantees. Even if your idea and plans have solid foundations, there will be turbulence along the way, and there’s no telling which direction you’re headed until you’re several months into it.  Startups by their very nature are unstable, you will encounter unforeseen shifts as your work progresses. 

Security and standards of living Most founders use their savings to get off the ground. As a result, you’ll have to tighten your belt and repurpose personal budgets. Start tapping into your inner frugal self, and you’ll discover you can live on less than you imagine. No regular pay-cheque – have you made contingency plans? 

Headspace A new business requires consistent problem-solving. To prepare for this, avoid mindless activities that are distracting and aren’t priorities. Successful entrepreneurs learn to thrive in uncomfortable situations.

2.         Personal Risks Entrepreneurship gives you the opportunity to create a personalised financial landscape and, more importantly for me, the freedom of how to spend your time. Before you arrive at that place of satisfaction and fulfilment though, you will have to face certain risks.

Quality of relationships Some founders end up sacrificing significant relationships. If you lose worthwhile relationships, there’s an issue with your ability to balance work and life priorities. Know that your time will largely be dedicated toward your venture but carving out time to spend with those you care about is critical. Manage your priorities and the intensity, put some clear bookmarks into your schedule.

Emotions By this I mean physical, and spiritual health. You need to keep these on top of your agenda and not let your entrepreneurial venture take precedence. Set aside time for taking care of your health every day but know if won’t be as much as you’d like.

Sleep It’s quite simple: the right amount of sleep leaves you with the right working hours in the day to get things done. Don’t sacrifice sleep, its counterproductive. Sure, there will be pulling all-nighters to get a proposal completed, but it’s never about sacrificing huge chunks of sleep every night in order to gain a few hours in your day. It won’t be worth it because you’ll lack energy .Despite the rhetoric, you don’t need to run an 18-hour working day.

3.         Personal Rewards As you progress through your entrepreneurial journey, you will no doubt see close friends have careers in the corporate world allowing them to live a comfortable life. However, this should not discourage you, remember that their security has a ceiling for growth, and your limits are infinitely higher doing your own thing.

Hands-on relationship with the work you love Many people choose to go into a business because they love some aspect of it: a chef opens a restaurant. As a founder, you control you establish an enterprise to serve as a statement of your ambitions. You are setting your own direction and without being too dramatic, your own destiny.

Freedom You decide when you want time away from the business. Flexibility to use the hours in the week is a great feeling, it was one of the personal drivers in my choice to do my own thing. Work your own schedule, when and where you like. Set your agenda, no one else does!

Excitement and impact Building your own business is exciting as you get to apply your skills and abilities, make breakthroughs and meet interesting people. Your work is dynamic, you never get bored. There is no better feeling then creating something out of nothing.

Success creates the reward Money is the applause, Success means that we live the life we truly want, and not just the life we settle for. No one is asking you to look at the world through rose-coloured glasses. See the world for what you want it to be.

Summary It was in 1978 that Tony Wilson, Rob Gretton and Alan Eramus founded Factory Records in Manchester, along with Martin Hannett and Peter Saville. Wilson used an inheritance of £12,000 from his mum. Based in the Russell Club in Moss Side, they released their first EP, A Factory Sampler, featuring acts that played at the club, in 1979.

Factory Records was an entrepreneurial bootstrapping tour de force. It amplified an audacious soundtrack of innovation and disruption that has always been the hallmark of Manchester. Talking Head’s guitarist Tina Weymouth, once remarked of Factory: I grew up in New York in the Seventies, and I've seen a lot of people who live life on the edge, but I've never before seen a group of people who had no idea where the edge is.

Of the founders, Wilson, Gretton and Hannett are no longer with us, but their legacy remains, a moment in time in music and Manchester’s history of innovative startup ventures.

They were fired by grit and resilience. When we talk about thee qualities, we are looking at two different but interconnected muscles of the human psyche. While people often use them interchangeably, they function in distinct ways to help you navigate life's uphill moments:

Resilience This is your ability to recover from setbacks or failure. It is reactive. When life knocks you down, resilience is the quality that allows you to get back up, adapt, and eventually thrive again.

Grit Popularized by psychologist Angela Duckworth, grit is passion and perseverance for long-term goals. It is proactive. It’s the stamina to stick with a future goal for years, even when the "newness" has worn off and things get boring or difficult.

According to Duckworth’s research, Resilience keeps you in the game; Grit helps you win it. The human spirit is at the heart of everything I believe in. Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did. Over time, tenacity and endeavour is what separates fruitful lives from aimlessness.

We were once an economy of factories. Now we’re an economy of ideas. The factory was a place of innovation. It converted cotton to cloth, grain to flour, ore to steel. The factory changed the landscape of our economy once. It started in Manchester. Now we’re doing it again. In tech. In Manchester. After all, the story of Manchester has always been the story of people going against the grain to imagine a better tomorrow.

Take inspiration from the resilience and grit of Tony Wilson, Rob Gretton, Alan Eramus Martin Hannett and Peter Saville into your own founder endeavours and you’ll create the right mindset for startup success